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by mischiefmanager



Series: The Greater Fool Series [7]
Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Aged Up Characters (20-21 years old), Dealing With Eddie's Shitty Mom, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Rated T for Trashmouth, mentions of sexual situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanager/pseuds/mischiefmanager
Summary: “Tooooozier-Kaspbrak residence,” Richie says cheerfully, holding the phone up to his ear. “May I ask who—ohhello,Mrs. K! How thefuckare you?”Richie and Eddie living together in LA, being in love and dealing with Mrs. K long-distance.





	Home

Eddie has taken to Los Angeles the way an obese cat takes to a shoebox: by forcing himself to fit into a space that wasn’t made for him until finally, at long last, he’d gotten comfortable. He heard himself telling some tourist he met in line at Coffee Bean the other day: _ew, don’t go to Venice Beach, it’s_ so _gross. Manhattan Beach is way better. Just go south on Crescent Heights—don’t take Fairfax, it’s always a nightmare—until you get like, past Pico, then you get to like Sawyer. Take a right on Sawyer, and then a left on La Cienega. Go south on La Cienega, and then stay left and you’ll merge onto the four-oh-five, and then get off at Sepulveda,_ and he had to slap a hand over his mouth because he sounded _exactly_ like the people he used to make fun of when he and Richie first moved here. Richie, that little asshole, had laughed until he was crying and asked Eddie if he maybe wanted to get some highlights to go with that Valley Girl accent. That was the moment when Eddie realized that he probably isn’t going to ever be able to live anywhere else again. He has _fully assimilated._ He is a California Boy now.

When they got home that night, Richie had suggested buying a boogie board to commemorate the occasion. _We can take the four-oh-five to Manhattan Beach and get one on The Strand,_ he’d said, giggling and ducking Eddie’s attempts to whack him on the head.

Richie has been a California Boy from the moment they set foot outside the car after they crossed the state line. _Fish to the water. Bird to the sky._ Those are the things that come to mind when Eddie thinks about Richie fitting into LA.

Because UCLA had insisted on Eddie living in the dorms during his freshman year, Richie had gone ahead and found himself a roommate. God only knows how he figured out the guy was gay based on nothing but a classified listing— _I have my ways_ was the only explanation Eddie could get out of him—but Marc was like a forty-year-old nurse who worked the graveyard shift and didn’t give a flying fuck about Eddie spending the night every other day. And besides, he moved out the next summer, and Eddie moved right on in.

The apartment is located in an _enormous_ , loosely gated community called Park La Brea. Richie had gone to check it out by himself the first time while Eddie got settled in his dorm. When he’d come back, Eddie asked him how it was and his response was, _You’ve seen Labyrinth, right?_ The place is like a interdimensional maze of identical rows of townhouses and numbered towers, all branching off of connecting roundabouts. Everything is painted in the same white, muted pink, and light grayish-green color scheme. It feels like it’s designed to make _sure_ you get lost, like if H. H. Holmes was in charge of building a suburb. Richie has now lived there for three years and the last time he got turned around was less than a week ago. Pizza delivery guys always take forever to find them.

The only other real issue is that they’re on the eighth floor and the elevator in their tower breaks down at least once every couple of months—most notably this afternoon—and each time Eddie’s gotten an unexpected workout when he came home from class and had to climb seven flights of stairs. His thighs are still burning now and he’s been home for four hours.

But the apartment itself is pretty fucking nice. Sure, it’s a little plain and they haven’t done much in the way of decorating, but all the appliances work and they never run out of hot water, which is cool. There are two bedrooms; one for Eddie and Richie and one for guests. Of course, Eddie’s mom thinks they each have their own bedroom so she hasn’t asked to come visit. The fact that he’s still got _that disgusting Tozier boy_ as a “roommate” has been a big enough deterrent to her so far.

Thankfully, Richie’s presence has had the opposite effect on the people Eddie actually _wants_ to see. Ben and Bev flew down from Illinois to spend Easter with them last year, and they had Stan visit from Atlanta over Thanksgiving. Bill has promised to try and get away from the New York humidity and stay for a week over the summer. Mike is still stuck on the farm, but Eddie’s on the phone with him at least once a month trying to convince him to sell the fucking place and come live in LA with him and Richie. _We have an extra bedroom,_ he sing-songs as Mike laughs. _You’ll never be bored again!_

Not-so-secretly, Eddie wants them _all_ to come live in LA. Because, despite the terrifying traffic and the fact that Eddie’s still in school, LA is probably going to wind up being their forever home. Like, actually. Richie loves LA so, _so_ much. He’s part of an improv group that meets on Melrose and maybe Eddie’s a little biased, but they’re pretty damn funny. He loves his job. He loves the West Hollywood neighborhood, which is like Gay Central Station and is only a few blocks away.

And the city has grown on Eddie too; he likes UCLA (although not so much right now, with finals approaching), his part-time job at the Student Store is pretty easy, and there are plenty of job opportunities for when he graduates. Also, it turns out he’s actually _really_ fucking good at finding his way around the city and remembering where everything is. _You’re a goddamn savant,_ Richie says sometimes. _Like a homing pigeon. Too bad you’re such a shitty driver._

Eddie isn’t sure where Richie gets off calling _Eddie_ a shitty driver. Richie is the kind of driver who is eating a sandwich, having a conversation, and dancing along to music all at the same time, only occasionally checking in with what’s going on on the road. _Distracted_ doesn’t even begin to cover it. And he’s so _slow—_ it always takes twice as long for Richie to get from point A to point B as it takes Eddie. _That’s because I’m following the fucking speed limit,_ Richie says, _maybe you should try it sometime,_ but Eddie doesn’t see the point in driving twenty miles an hour down an empty stretch of road, or stopping at a yellow light he can _clearly_ make if he just speeds up a little. Eddie isn’t sure how they survived the road trip down from Maine with Richie driving the whole way, but as soon as he had a license, Eddie commandeered almost exclusive use of Richie’s crappy station wagon. Whenever they go anywhere together, Eddie drives. No exceptions.

Because Eddie’s _not_ a shitty driver. Eddie’s just _assertive._ He doesn’t let people fuck him around. He credits that to learning to drive in LA, because his mom wouldn’t even let him _touch_ her car keys back in Derry. If he wants to merge, _he’s going to merge._ If someone in front of him is taking their sweet time, Eddie has no problem hopscotching around them through the lanes. The horn is there for a reason, and people trying to turn left on 3rd during rush hour need to be reminded that they’re holding up traffic. Driving in LA is not for the weak. It’s every man for himself.

Half the time though, he and Richie just hang out near their apartment. There’s tons of stuff within walking distance—a big-ass park, a Blockbuster, lots of different restaurants—and even if there wasn’t, honestly Eddie is happy really just wherever he and Richie are together.

The other thing that comes to mind when Eddie thinks about Richie is that his shift ended twenty minutes ago, and Eddie needs to haul ass on the chapter he’s reading because he’s not going to be able to get anything done once Richie gets home from work.

Eddie picks up a highlighter and then he hears it: the unmistakable sound of rollerblades at the other end of the hallway. God damnit. He’s fucking doing it again.

Eddie shoves his chair out from his desk and runs to the front door, throwing his entire body weight against it and putting the chain on the latch. _Whoosh, clomp. Whoosh clomp._ The rollerblades get closer, then _skrrrrrrech_ to a halt.

Richie tries the doorknob, then knocks on the door. _Dun dun dun da da dun dun._

“I’m not letting you in until you take off your fucking skates,” Eddie calls.

“Fuck,” says Richie from the other side of the door. “You heard that? I was so quiet!”

“You have never actually been quiet once in your entire life,” Eddie tells him, still leaning on the door. “And you have to stop fucking doing that, someone is going to call Park La Brea on you.”

“Who? Who is going to call Park La Brea?”

“I don’t know, probably _me_ if you keep trying to skate in the apartment,” Eddie says. “You’re fucking up the floors and we won’t get our deposit back ever if they have to replace them.”

“If you don’t think we’re getting the deposit back anyway,” Richie says, “we might as well get a cat.”

“We’re _not_ getting a cat,” Eddie tells him for the millionth time. “We’re not even getting _you_ if you don’t take your goddamn skates off.”

“Fine,” Richie sighs dramatically, sitting down heavily on the other side of the door. Eddie listens for the _thump thump_ of the rollerblades hitting the floor. He doesn’t bother asking if Richie’s going to change into real shoes—Richie doesn’t even _bring_ real shoes to work.

“Are they off?” he asks after a second.

 _“Yes_ you buzzkill, now let me in,” says Richie. Eddie doesn’t hear him standing up, which he assumes he would if Richie were still wearing them, so he thinks it’s probably safe to say Richie has actually done as he asked. It’s a miracle. He unlatches the chain and cautiously cracks the door open.

Richie bursts into the apartment, nearly bowling Eddie over as he _whooshes_ past. He’s even more ridiculously tall than usual because _he’s still got his fucking rollerblades on, god damn it_ and Eddie follows him to the bedroom repeating his warnings about how rollerblades aren’t good for the carpet or the hardwood and Richie just laughs the whole way there.

Richie uses the momentum he gained from rollerblading down the hallway to launch himself directly onto their unmade bed, facedown.

“So I take it they fixed the elevator?” Eddie asks, standing in the doorway to their bedroom.

Richie’s curls shake back and forth.

“Did you...did you _walk_ up the stairs in your skates?”

“Yes,” Richie’s muffled voice comes from where his face is planted in the comforter. Eddie huffs at him in frustration.

“I can’t… If you look up and I see a fucking toothpick in your mouth, I swear to God Richie—”

Richie lifts his head and looks over his shoulder at Eddie, pushing a toothpick against his canine with his tongue.

“Oh my God, why do you do this to me?” Eddie groans, covering his face with his hands. “That’s _so_ fucking dangerous, you’re going to fall on your face and it’s going to poke a fucking hole in your lip and—”

“Cool,” says Richie calmly, flipping over so that he’s resting his weight on his forearms behind him. “Free lip piercing.”

 _“Not_ cool,” snaps Eddie.

“I can’t ditch the toothpick, babe,” Richie tells him, rolling it around in his mouth with his tongue. “Dick Hardy always has a toothpick, it’s part of his look.”

Oh God. Eddie uncovers his eyes to glare at Richie—sorry, not Richie, _Dick Hardy—_ in all his glory. Richie has been waiting tables since the day they arrived, but six months ago he started doing it at Ed Debevic’s, which is hands-down the craziest fucking restaurant Eddie’s ever seen. Richie jokes constantly about how he spends his entire life _at_ Ed’s or _in_ Eds, which Eddie thinks wasn’t that funny the first time and has gotten steadily _less_ funny each time he says it.

Ed Debevic’s is like a fifties-style diner on acid. It’s loud, _so, so loud,_ and raucous and wild and the seats are all fat booths and puffy bar stools covered in glittery teal or red vinyl. They serve pretty standard food from a huge menu—burgers, salads, milkshakes, fries, that kind of stuff—but nothing else about the place is ordinary, which makes sense because every single one of the people who works there is like Richie. Every half hour, the entire waitstaff stops what they’re doing to get on the counters and tables and dance along to _YMCA._ Instead of being given a uniform, new hires get to come up with a _character_ to be during work hours. They _encourage_ eccentricity—the more memorable and out-there the persona, the better. There’s like a big, buff girl with a buzzcut who dresses up like a wrestler named Bruna and barks at customers to feel her biceps, another girl who is basically Rizzo from _Grease_ whom Eddie has never seen without bubblegum in her mouth _,_ and a guy with slicked-back hair and a sweater vest who looks just like a ginger version of Rivers Cuomo. And then there’s _Dick fucking Hardy._

Dick Hardy, as Richie will happily tell anyone who will listen, is a cowboy. Eddie has very limited—okay, _no_ —experience with real cowboys, but he knows enough to be _positive_ that there has never, in the history of cowboys, been a cowboy even _remotely_ like Dick Hardy. He’s an eyesore from head to toe—or rather—hat to skates. Richie has literally attached plastic _spurs_ to his rollerblades for “authenticity,” and Dick is never seen out of them. Richie skates to and from work every day _in costume_ and sometimes people at the Farmers Market will see them together having Sunday brunch at DuPar’s and say, _Hey, you’re the guy I’ve seen rollerblading down Wilshire, right? In like a cowboy costume?_ And then Richie will immediately put on the Dick Hardy Voice and be like, _Why yes ma’am, I sure am_ or, _Yes siree, that’s me,_ and Eddie will have to threaten to douse him in maple syrup until he stops.

Besides the rollerblades, he wears a pair of orange chaps (which Eddie complained about until Richie said _would you like them better if I made them into assless chaps?_ ), a denim button-up shirt with a bolo tie, a bandana, a fringed vest, and worst of all, the ugliest hat ever known to man. Eddie is sure the restaurant could afford to buy him a better hat, but knowing Richie, he probably insisted on this one. It looks like something a middle schooler would buy ironically at Dollywood—pink, sequined, and not even _close_ to the right size for Richie’s big head and even bigger hair. To keep it from falling off, Richie actually taped the brim to a headband he got at Savon and wears it that way. He also carries a rope—rainbow and glittery—like a lasso around his hips, and, for reasons known only to Richie, a toothpick in his mouth. Even among the Ed Debevic’s crowd, he stands out.

But the weirdest thing about Dick Hardy, in Eddie’s opinion, is that he _doesn’t_ wear glasses. Richie insisted that glasses don’t fit with Dick’s “image,” so he went to an eye doctor and got contacts to wear to work. Considering that Eddie spent his entire childhood thinking Richie’s gigantic glasses were ridiculous and goofy-looking, he was _really_ surprised by how much he despises the contacts. He remembers Richie fumbling with them for half an hour in front of the bathroom mirror, then turning around and going, _Alright babe, how do I look?_ And Eddie had just stared at him and Richie had been like, _That bad, huh?_ Eddie was sure he just needed to get used to them, but now it’s been six months, and the fact of the matter is that Richie just doesn’t look like Richie without his glasses. Period. Luckily, Richie says the contacts get kind of itchy after he’s worn them all day, so he takes them right out and switches to back to the glasses when he’s done being Dick Hardy, and usually doesn’t even bother putting them in at all on his days off.

Eddie _hates_ Dick Hardy. He has a rule, in fact, which Richie often completely ignores: Dick Hardy is not allowed in their home, and Richie taking off his rollerblades before coming inside is symbolic of this rule. Right now though, Eddie is concerned with his secondary but even more important rule: Dick Hardy is not allowed in their _bed._

“You have ten seconds to get your rollerblades off of our sheets,” Eddie tells him.

“Why dontcha make me, partner?” Richie says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t have sex with Dick Hardy,” Eddie reminds him for at least the ten millionth time, walking toward the bed. “I have _zero_ attraction to Dick Hardy.”

Richie laughs. “You just keep tellin’ yourself that,” he says, spitting his toothpick into the trash can next to the bed. “What are we doing for dinner? I’m starving.”

Eddie leans down near Richie’s feet and starts unlacing the skates. “Don’t you have leftover Gumbo Pot?” he asks.

“I ate it this morning,” Richie tells him, kicking out of his chaps and starting on his vest and bolo tie.

Eddie makes a face. “Really? You ate gumbo for breakfast?”

Richie shrugs, unbuttoning his shirt. “Why not?”

“Well, maybe because we have cereal you could’ve had instead, and you said you didn’t need me to pick you up any dinner,” says Eddie, hanging up Richie’s vest and chaps in the closet and dropping his shirt and _insanely sweaty_ socks into the hamper. “And so I didn’t, and so now I’ve eaten and you haven’t.”

Richie tosses his headband-hat onto the dresser and runs his hands through his hair to fluff the curls back out. “Ugh, _fine._ If you promise we can get Andre’s for lunch tomorrow, I’ll have cereal for dinner tonight.”

 _Ooh._ Andre’s, the cheapest Italian restaurant south of Santa Monica. It’s _dangerously_ close to their house and serves Andre-the-Giant-sized portions of _really_ good pasta and pizza and gelato. He and Richie eat there more often than he’d like to admit.

“Deal,” says Eddie, turning to head back down the hall as Richie walks over to the dresser and starts rummaging for pajamas. “Wait, tomorrow? I thought you said you were working tomorrow?”

“Nope,” Richie calls back. “I switched shifts with Geoff, remember?”

“Oh, right,” says Eddie. There goes his study schedule, right out the window. Crap. He goes into the living room and starts putting away his books and papers while Richie is in the bathroom. Eddie has a study group for Econ on Monday afternoon, he figures it won’t be _too_ terrible if he just kind of saves the reading until then. After that he can spend the evening finishing the essay. Richie works pretty late Mondays, he rarely ends up leaving before eight, so Eddie will have plenty of time.

Richie emerges a few minutes later, looking much more Richie-ish in his glasses and a wrinkled t-shirt and Simpsons boxers. Eddie rolls his eyes at him, smirking. “So I really have to deal with you all weekend?”

“You better believe it,” says Richie, grinning and coming up behind him. “Other than going to Andre’s tomorrow and seeing if I can just like, deepthroat a loaf of garlic bread, I’m not planning on letting you out of bed until Monday. Starting right after I finish my dinner.”

Richie wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist and hauls him bodily onto the sofa. Eddie turns around in Richie’s lap and puts his arms around his neck, leaning in for a kiss, which runs a little hotter and longer than Eddie had been expecting.

“Mmm,” Richie hums against his lips, hands on Eddie’s hips. “Seriously,” he says, “like...it’s gonna take me ten minutes _tops_ to eat, and then we can just like _go._ Like if you even wanna head in there and start getting cleaned up before—”

_Riiiiiiiing!_

“I’ll get it,” Eddie says, scrambling off of Richie’s lap. Richie sighs and leans his head back for a second before heaving himself off the sofa and padding into the kitchen.

_Riiiiiiiing!_

“If it’s Geoff,” Richie calls back at him, “tell him I’m not taking my fucking shift back. Tell him I’m literally balls deep in your ass right now, and he can—”

_Riiiiiiiing!_

“I’m not—no. If it’s Geoff, I’m giving _you_ the phone; you can tell him whatever you want,” Eddie replies. “I’m not your goddamn secretary.” Richie doesn’t respond.

 _Riiii—_ Eddie grabs the phone off its dock on the desk.

“Make it convincing,” Richie says as Eddie scrambles to cover the speaker. “Like, moaning and shit. _Ahh, uh, oh Richie_ —”

“Shut up!” Eddie tells him, then takes his hand off of the mouthpiece. “Hello?”

“Eddie-bear?”

Eddie feels his entire body tense up, as if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. His heart starts racing. Any trace of arousal that might have lingered from his little impromptu makeout session with Richie vanishes.

“Hi.” Eddie _hates_ the way his voice just does that _thing_ when he talks to his mom. Like it gets all soft and high-pitched and he feels like he’s thirteen all over again. Richie peeks his head out of the kitchen, brows furrowed.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re alright,” she says softly, like she really means it. “I was worried something had happened to you, I haven’t heard from you in such a long time.”

 _Six days,_ Eddie wants to say. _It’s been six_ fucking _days since you kept me on the phone for an hour and a half talking about soap opera drama and trying to guilt me into moving back to Maine._

“Sorry, Mom,” he tells her instead. “I’ve been busy with school. Finals are—”

“I’m sure,” she says. “You haven’t told me when you’re planning on flying in yet. I need to know soon, sweetie, Christmas is only three weeks away. You know you promised me you would—”

Ugh, _fuck_ . Eddie’s been avoiding talking to her about this for _weeks_ because he’s hoping if he stalls long enough, plane tickets will get too expensive and then he’ll have an excuse to stay in LA for Christmas. The last two years, he and Richie have gone back to Derry over the holidays and both times it was fucking _miserable._ Eddie’s mom treats him _exactly_ the way she always has when he’s there, it feels like he’s right back in high school. She wants to know where he is and who he’s with at all hours of the day, sulks and guilt trips him every time he leaves the house, and spends the whole trip trying to convince him not to go back to California. Sometimes she hides his shit or turns his alarm clock off the night before he leaves to try and sabotage him into missing his flight. He hasn’t bothered to confront her about that; he doesn’t really have any proof and it’s just not worth her getting all defensive about it. As it is, they’ve run late every time because it takes over an hour to peel her off of him.

Also, he barely gets to see Richie. Richie either stays with his parents or on Mike’s farm, and Eddie only really gets to spend time with him at night, when he sneaks in through Eddie’s bedroom window. It’s not _nearly_ as fun as it was in high school because Eddie is now used to sleeping with him every night in their queen-size bed at home, and having to cram back into a single is beyond uncomfortable. And that’s just _sleeping._ Trying to have sex in Derry, to put it bluntly, sucks ass.

Eddie bites his lip as Richie walks into the living room with a bowl of cereal. His eyes don’t leave Eddie’s as he sits down heavily on the sofa. Some of the milk splashes out of the bowl and onto Richie’s shirt.

“Shit!” Richie says, holding his shirt away from his body. Eddie’s mom stops talking.

“What was that?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Eddie says quickly, handing Richie a roll of paper towels from the table. “Richie just—”

His mom sighs deeply. Oh shit. Here we go again.

“Eddie dear,” she says. “Where are you going to be staying when you go back to school next semester?”

“Um…” _Why_ is she doing this to him? She fucking _knows_ Eddie signed a year lease with Richie last month. She made a whole big stink about it, and Eddie had reassure her a billion times that it was _fine_ and everything was going _great,_ and she spent like two weeks shitting on Richie nonstop, until Eddie had to be like, _Mom, I already signed the lease,_ and then she finally gave up. Except apparently not. Eddie starts pacing back and forth across the living room. “Mom, I—”

“I’m just worried about you,” she interrupts. She’s using her For Your Own Good voice too. “I’ve never been comfortable with you spending so much time with that boy.”

“I know,” Eddie says quickly. Richie has mopped up the milk on his shirt and is now eating his cereal, sitting cross-legged on the sofa and watching Eddie pace.

“I was at at lunch with Iris Ferkins a few days ago,” Eddie’s mom says, “and I meant to call you about this. I’d really feel much better if you got a new roommate.”

“What—”

“I wasn’t done, dear,” she says over him. “Well Iris said that apparently, Peggy McNulty overheard Gretta Bowie saying that Tozier is a homosexual.” She whispers the last word like it’s the nastiest thing she can imagine.

Eddie resists the urge to correct her because Richie is, in fact, bisexual. There’s a distinction, but Eddie somehow doubts it would make much of a difference to his mom. Especially because Eddie himself _is_ exclusively homosexual.

“Is that true?” she demands of Eddie.

“No,” Eddie says. Honesty by omission, fuck yeah.

“Would you tell me if it was?” his mom presses. “Because I don’t think I could stand it if you were living with someone like that. It worries me that you’re so far away from home in such a big city, sweetheart. Los Angeles is full of those people. You might run into one without even realizing it and—”

Something is happening to Eddie as she speaks. It feels like his dinner is boiling up in his stomach. For all of the bullshit she’s given him over the years about Richie and LA and all that, she’s somehow never broached this topic. Most of her warnings have been about drugs and floozy girls and like, clubs and shit—all of which Eddie has no interest in anyway. She’s never brought up _gay people,_ although Eddie has always instinctively known she wouldn’t approve. It’s just...it’s one thing to think that, and another thing to literally have her badmouthing _those people_ right in his ear. He clenches the phone so tightly his knuckles start to go white.

“—I just have always had a bad feeling about that Tozier boy,” she continues. “He might not have told you, dear, but he’s probably bringing strange boys into your house. That makes him dirty, touching all those people. He’s dangerous. He could be carrying all kinds of diseases into your apartment. Herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia…”

Eddie tries to take a deep breath, but it feels like his ribcage is squeezing around his lungs. Not like an asthma attack. More like maybe how Bruce Banner feels before he turns into The Incredible Hulk. Pulse thundering through his veins. Teeth almost chattering in rage.

“Mark my words, Eddie, when he shows up with AIDS germs all over his hands one of these days—”

Richie is looking at Eddie curiously, holding his cereal bowl in one of his long, gentle hands and a spoon in the other. His eyes are dark and soft behind his glasses, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. Right now, his dark hair looks like a halo around his face, which is more freckled than ever since they moved to California. He’s so lanky and beautiful in his ratty old pajamas that Eddie’s eyes well up with furious tears.

“—could even work for Mr. Ferkins, right down the street. It’d be much safer for you to be living at home, Eddie-bear—”

 _Home is Richie,_ he thinks. _Home is wherever Richie and I are together._

And that’s when he snaps.

“You know what, Ma?” he says. “Richie isn’t going to pick up HIV or herpes or...or whatever you’re thinking. You wanna know why?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

“Because Richie isn’t hooking up with a bunch of random dudes. Richie isn’t even a _homosexual,”_ he says, whispering the last word the way she did, spitting it out like acid. _“I_ am. _I’m_ gay, and Richie’s actually _bi_ , not gay, but I don’t care because the only person he has _ever_ fucking slept with is _me_.”

There’s a pounding silence for a minute that roars through Eddie’s ears like a fire in an empty room. Then—

Eddie hears his mom take in a deep breath and he reflexively hangs up on her.

He looks up again at Richie, who has dropped his empty cereal bowl on the coffee table and is staring at Eddie with his mouth hanging open and his eyes bigger than Eddie has ever seen them. Eddie stares back in silence, breathing even harder than he was a few hours earlier when he walked up seven flights of stairs.

The phone starts ringing again.

The sound snaps Eddie out of whatever fit of righteous fury just took over his body and he feels his courage draining out of his pores. Oh _shit,_ his mom is going to kill him. Him and Richie. Not literally, of course, because that would require her to get out of her fucking chair but like… She’s going to fucking—oh God. He is going to be paying for that little outburst until he _dies._ Eddie makes a whimpering noise as he stares down at the ringing phone in his hands.

 _“Hey, howdy, hey, you’ve reached—ow—”_ says Richie’s Dick Hardy voice from the answering machine.

 _“—ugh, Richard Tozier and Edward Kaspbrak—”_ Eddie hears himself say. _“And yes, this is three, two, three, nine, three—”_

_“—they called this number, they know what it is—”_

_“—seven, five, five,”_ Eddie continues over him, _“but Marc Willis doesn’t live here anymore so if you’re looking for him you have the wrong—”_

 _“—just do what I do and start talking at the—”_ Richie’s voice cuts back in.

Before Answering Machine Richie can finish, real Richie has gotten to his feet and walked over to Eddie. He calmly takes the phone out of Eddie’s hand and hits _talk._

“Tooooozier-Kaspbrak residence,” he says cheerfully, holding the phone up to his ear and taking a few steps back. “May I ask who—oh _hello,_ Mrs. K! How the _fuck_ are you?”

Eddie can tell his mom is yelling, but Richie is holding the phone far enough away from him now that he can’t make out her words. Richie wanders back into the kitchen and Eddie follows him dazedly, blindly, leaning against the doorway.

“—could make you understand,” Richie is saying, reaching into the cupboard that serves as a pantry and moving boxes and cans aside. “Sucking your son’s dick could never compare to being buried in the folds of your fat. If only—ooh Eddie, you didn’t tell me you got more SpaghettiOs!”

Eddie just gapes at him. Richie adjusts the phone so he’s holding it to his ear with his shoulder.

“—why you couldn’t wait to call me until Eddie’s gone to bed,” Richie continues, trying to pry open the can of SpaghettiOs. “Now he knows of our torrid arrangement, how I miss your flabby tits and your chin...and your other chin...and your other chin…Eds, can you do this for me? Your nails are longer.”

Richie thrusts the can at Eddie, who opens it numbly and hands it back without even looking at it.

“Thanks, babe. Anyway, Mrs. K, I just don’t think things are going to work out between us anymore. I can’t keep up this charade. Eddie and I have been together for—how long has it been now? God, like...” he pauses as he dumps the contents of the can into a bowl.

“Uh...s-six years?”  Eddie rasps.

“Damn, really?” Richie says mildly, grabbing a spoon and stirring the SpaghettiOs, still cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder. “Eddie says six years, Mrs. K. I remember the days I used to climb through his bedroom window every—”

He laughs over Eddie’s mom’s shrieking.

“Haha, yeah,” he says. “Good times. It’s just such a bitch to do now, like when we go back out there for Christmas and I have to sneak in every goddamn night. I mean, I can still fit through his bedroom window, but like, Jesus, we’ve been sleeping in the same fucking bed at home for _years.”_

Richie pops the bowl of SpaghettiOs into the microwave, sets the timer, then backs up to lean against the kitchen counter. “I mean, to be _totally_ honest, it was kinda hot at first. Like, _Ooh remember when we used to have to be all quiet during sex cause we were worried your mom might hear us,_ but we got _so_ used to being as loud as we want at home and it’s hard to go back, ya know? I mean, no, you don’t know. That was insensitive of me. My deepest apologies.”

Richie steps away from the microwave and stops in front of their fridge, staring. It’s the only place in the apartment they’ve bothered decorating, if you can call dirty jokes made with magnetic poetry holding up a bunch of Polaroids a decoration. Eddie loves those pictures more than he’s willing to admit though; he can describe every one of them by memory, and there are at least two dozen. Some are old: Mike with one arm around Stan and the other around Ben, Eddie, Mike and Bev in sunglasses doing Charlie’s Angels poses, Richie and Bill’s naked asses, taken from behind at the quarry as they’re about to jump, and one of Eddie and Stan rolling their eyes in perfect sync at Richie.

Others are newer. Ben kissing Bev in front of the Chrysler Building, taken over the summer by Bill. Stan squinting in the sun on Hollywood Boulevard in a shirt that says _Georgia Peach_ . Richie petting a sheep on Mike’s farm that looks like it’s about to bite him. And the best one: a strip of photos of Richie and Eddie taken at the photobooth in the back of Ed Debevic’s. The first three are all of Eddie dodging Richie’s attempts to kiss him, but Richie had got him on the last one. It’s easily Eddie’s favorite picture ever taken of them—the lighting is like, _insanely_ overexposed, but Eddie’s eyes are closed and his cheeks are pink and Richie looks like he’s trying to kiss and grin at the same time. The magnets keeping it attached to the fridge read, _i will show you a staff in fuck -tion,_ which was the closest Richie could get to an inside joke with the available word options.

Richie fingers the edge of the photostrip, then goes quiet for a second and licks his lips.

“I always hate to disappoint my favorite lady-on-the-side,” he says, “but I guess someone’s gotta spell it out for you: me and Eddie are gonna stay home for Christmas. Like, our _real_ home. Here.” Richie’s voice has gone very soft, in a way Eddie’s not sure he ever remembers hearing it. “The bottom line is...I’d marry Eddie tomorrow if it was legal. He’s the love of my life. And that’s literally the only thing you and I have in common: we both love Eddie. Except you love some...like, made-up version of Eddie that doesn’t exist, and I love the actual Eddie who’s standing right here in the kitchen looking like he’s about to barf. So until you start giving a shit about _that_ Eddie, we aren’t interested in coming to see you.”

The microwave beeps. Richie hangs up the phone and tosses it onto the counter. He flashes Eddie a grin before popping the microwave open and taking the bowl out. Eddie hangs onto the door frame for support.

“Did you just tell my mom you want to marry me?” is the only thing he can think to say.

“What?” says Richie. “No, she hung up after I told her we weren’t coming for Christmas.”

Richie grabs the phone and goes to put it back into its dock. Eddie can tell he thinks he’s being subtle about it, but Eddie catches him sneakily disconnecting the line under the desk. He doesn’t think he can put into words how grateful he is—for that, and for what he said.

“You okay?” Richie asks, settling back down on the couch with his SpaghettiOs. Eddie comes to sit next to him, looking at his knees.

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” Eddie whispers, fighting back tears. God, Richie…

“Do what?” Richie says, chewing. “Babe, I deal with meaner customers than that at work all the fuckin’ time.”

Eddie sniffs wetly. “I just mean… I don’t know how you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Eddie picks at a loose thread on the couch. “You know. Brave.”

Richie scoffs. “What? You don’t know how I’m brave?”

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “I mean...I feel like such a fucking wimp. She’s been like, walking all over me for years and I just—”

“Hold on,” Richie says, putting his SpaghettiOs onto the coffee table and ducking his neck down to look Eddie in the eye. “You think _I’m_ brave? You think _you’re_ a wimp?”

“You’re always brave,” Eddie tells him, shaking his head. There are tears on his cheeks and he wipes them away with his arm. “I just know… whenever I freak out, I feel like you’re always the one protecting me. And I shouldn’t need that. I—”

“Eddie,” Richie says. “You don’t need me for _shit._ I know we don’t like...talk about this very often? Fuck, I’d wanna pretend it didn’t happen as much as any of us do, but _dude_ . I fucking _saw_ you in that sewer. Your fucking arm was broken and you were just like... _unstoppable._ Remember when it puked on you? I used to think about you screaming, _I’m gonna kill you_ at that thing whenever I was too scared to sleep for _years._ Like...if it came for me you’d just show up and kill it with pure...I dunno, gay rage? Something. You’d just...you’d do it.”

Eddie just stares at him. He can still see the same boy in Richie—the one holding a baseball bat, saying _and now I’m gonna have to kill this fucking clown—_ but he’s not Eddie’s Hero anymore. He’s something even better.

“And you _did_ stand up to your mom,” Richie continues. “Back then, and then again literally _just_ now. You’re the bravest person I know.” Richie looks a little embarrassed, which Eddie guesses makes sense. They don’t usually get this real, and Richie always acts like he’s impervious to fear, shame...everything. It’s worth all his bravado to hear him let down his guard right now, when Eddie needs to hear it the most.

Eddie doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he leans over and kisses Richie. He tastes very strongly like SpaghettiOs, but for once it doesn’t matter. Richie smiles against his lips.

“I do need you,” Eddie whispers, as soon as he’s sure he can speak without crying. “For a lot of things.”

“Like what, killing spiders?” says Richie, resting his forehead against Eddie’s. “Getting stuff off the top shelf at the grocery store? Changing the light bulbs?”

Eddie giggles.

“God, I live for that, you know?” Richie says, closing his eyes for a second.

“For what?”

“You,” says Richie, wiping a stray tear off of Eddie’s cheek. “Laughing like that. I’d say anything to make it happen.”

“You would and you do,” says Eddie, smiling and shaking his head.

Richie picks up his SpaghettiOs again. “So here’s what I’m thinking,” he says through a mouthful of food, pointing his fork at Eddie. “Losers’ Club Christmas. We rent a cabin somewhere like, in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, like in Kansas or some shit, and we all just go out there and get drunk off our asses and have snowball fights and hang out together. What do you think?”

“I think you might be brilliant.” Eddie hops down off the couch and reconnects the phone, smiling at Richie as he dials Bill’s number.

Eddie can picture it perfectly: sitting in Richie’s lap on a couch, Beverly tucked under Ben’s arm at their side. Stan and Mike in armchairs, Bill sprawled out on the floor. Laughing at stupid stuff, a movie on in the background that no one is watching, warm with blankets and a blazing fire in the fireplace. _A home,_ Eddie thinks to himself, smiling as he hears Bill pick up the phone, _with my family._

**Author's Note:**

> hello again! come talk to me at yallreddieforthis.tumblr.com.
> 
> there will be more in this series. i'm not sure _what_ yet, but just...more.
> 
> i would also like to draw attention to the word count on this fic. i am v proud of it and i feel richie would approve that is all.


End file.
